Don't know whether to laugh or cry? This is the state of the State!
________________
Panicky Politicians
As we reported yesterday, the State Home Department has shortlisted 217 Congress leaders as VVIPs/VIPs in the wake of the latest ULFA threat to the ruling Congress. The most obvious question is: how have as many as 217 Congress leaders become VVIPs or VIPs overnight? Just because the ULFA has threatened the Congress? Have these shortlisted leaders been threatened individually? Or are they really the leaders of the masses, with a wonderful track record of performance, who the ULFA would kill any day? There seems to be a crisis now: how would one provide these new avatars — 217 VVIPs/VIPs — bullet-proof luxury at a time when the State government is in possession of only 52 bullet-proof cars, that too only on paper as most of them are out of order? More important, over 5,000 Congressmen have applied for security cover, and a bullet-proof car might be the wish of each one of them. Now the most important question is: what would happen if non-VVIPs ask for security cover or bullet-proof cars? What would happen if ordinary masses demand so? Can there be personal security cover or bullet-proof cars for the entire population of the State? As a matter of fact, it is mostly ordinary men, women and children — all non-VVIPs, all absolutely innocent — who have been killed in militant attacks over the years. So do they not have a stronger reason for ask for security cover or bullet-proof cars? How many such bullet-proof cars can the government — in a welfare state that it claims to have helped build — provide? Let one not say now that ordinary people do not need security, and that they are very very important persons (VVIPs, is not it?) only during elections. It is these ordinary people who can survive well without being 'led' by panicky politicians.
As we reported yesterday, the State Home Department has shortlisted 217 Congress leaders as VVIPs/VIPs in the wake of the latest ULFA threat to the ruling Congress. The most obvious question is: how have as many as 217 Congress leaders become VVIPs or VIPs overnight? Just because the ULFA has threatened the Congress? Have these shortlisted leaders been threatened individually? Or are they really the leaders of the masses, with a wonderful track record of performance, who the ULFA would kill any day? There seems to be a crisis now: how would one provide these new avatars — 217 VVIPs/VIPs — bullet-proof luxury at a time when the State government is in possession of only 52 bullet-proof cars, that too only on paper as most of them are out of order? More important, over 5,000 Congressmen have applied for security cover, and a bullet-proof car might be the wish of each one of them. Now the most important question is: what would happen if non-VVIPs ask for security cover or bullet-proof cars? What would happen if ordinary masses demand so? Can there be personal security cover or bullet-proof cars for the entire population of the State? As a matter of fact, it is mostly ordinary men, women and children — all non-VVIPs, all absolutely innocent — who have been killed in militant attacks over the years. So do they not have a stronger reason for ask for security cover or bullet-proof cars? How many such bullet-proof cars can the government — in a welfare state that it claims to have helped build — provide? Let one not say now that ordinary people do not need security, and that they are very very important persons (VVIPs, is not it?) only during elections. It is these ordinary people who can survive well without being 'led' by panicky politicians.
_______________________________________________ assam mailing list [email protected] http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org
